Cardinal George Pell has reportedly been moved
from his central prison in Melbourne
to a high-security facility in regional Victoria
after a drone had flown over the prison. - Source
This is sad. I believe Pell is innocent. He's being moved because they don't want him photographed. The conditions in the new prison are supposed to be pretty bad.
"Cardinal Pell knew from hard personal experience how virulent the anti-Catholic atmosphere in Australia had become. As a member of the College of Cardinals and a senior Vatican official, Pell enjoyed Vatican citizenship and held a Vatican diplomatic passport; he could have stayed put, untouchable by the Australian authorities. Yet he freely decided to submit himself to his country’s criminal justice system. He knew he was innocent; he was determined to defend his honor and that of the Church; and he believed in the rectitude of the Australian courts. So he went home." - George Weigel
This makes me so sad.
ReplyDeletePrayers for Cardinal Pell.
ReplyDeleteI remember when Papa Francis was first elected EWTN interviewed Cardinal Pell to get his opinion on the Holy Father's "style" He was sp serious in his reply, "we will not see much lace with this papacy. We must be patient."
Every time I read about him, that comment of his comes to mind. Despite the lack of lace, it seems they got on well. ^^)
As far as his being railroaded in the Austrailian courts, John Allen said in an interview on the matter, "Pell was well known for his fastidious attitude when it came to liturgical garb, there simply is no way he could have done what he was accused of doing while fully vested." Paraphraising but that's what I remember.
I hope the high court overturns his conviction.
At least one prominent non-religious secular journalist who covered the trial has called it a travesty of justice. That's enough for me.
ReplyDeletepray for him by all means, that God as mercy on his soul.
ReplyDeletehe is a convicted paeodophile.
There is more to the Pell story then we have been told. I do not presume to know his guilt or innocence in the particular case he was tried for, but his apparent embracing of clericalism and protection of Church perogatives and assests is all too familiar among the hierarchy. This article from the NCR offers some insight to Australian and I dare say American distrust and anger with the hierarchy.
ReplyDelete"After moving to Sydney, he became very tough with abuse claimants who stepped outside church-established systems and sued the archdiocese. An infamous example was the John Ellis case when Pell's lawyers claimed that the church could not be sued because its assets were held in trust. It turned out the lawyers were right, but the consequences of this decision for the church were far more disastrous than any financial payout. Ellis, who had been seriously abused by a priest, was tossed aside and utterly crushed without the slightest attempt at pastoral care or empathy. All the lawyers and Pell cared about was negative publicity, but as knowledge of the Ellis case spread, that is precisely what the church got.
It was this type of behaviour that is at the root of the public fury about Pell and Catholicism. People see it as hypocrisy. Here was the man who limited payments to victims and who pursued John Ellis to a breakdown and near bankruptcy, and was now himself found guilty of sexual abuse.
As Pell's lawyers tried to talk down the length of his imprisonment after the guilty verdict, Judge Peter Kidd was blunt: "I want to make it plain I see this as a serious example of this level of offending. I see this as callous, brazen offending. Blatant. I think it did involve breach of trust, he did have in his mind some sense of impunity, how else did he think he was going to get away with this exploiting of two vulnerable boys?"
The word "impunity" is the clue here. Pell seems to have felt himself beyond ordinary scrutiny, that somehow the civil law didn't apply to him. If anything, Pell's conviction makes it absolutely clear that the church is subject to the civil law and that clerical impunity will not be tolerated. All Catholics, especially priests, bishops and the Vatican need to think very seriously about that."
[Paul Collins of Australia is a church historian and author. His latest book is Absolute Power (Public Affairs, 2018).]
FYI Weigel at one time defended Marcial Maciel
ReplyDelete